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Dr. Abdorrahman Boroumand was born into a farmer/landowner family from Esfahan in 1927. He studied law at the University of Tehran and the University of Geneva, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1956. While a student, Boroumand supported the political program of then-prime minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, a respected statesman and champion of democratic reform. [Between 1951 and August 1953, when his government was ousted by an Anglo-American sponsored coup, Mossadegh was engaged in a multi-front political battle to reform Iran's electoral law and to implement parliament's decision to nationalize the British-owned oil industry.]

In 1956, Boroumand chose to return to his hometown and serve his country rather than accept an opportunity to work in Switzerland on international law. After returning to Esfahan, he joined the National Front, a coalition of pro-Mossadegh groups and individuals. He was among the very few National Front candidates to run in the parliamentary elections of the 1960s. A democracy advocate and charismatic speaker, he gathered unusual popular support and was arrested twice on the eve of the 1960 elections. He spent several weeks in prison before being barred, by the political police, from living in Esfahan. He settled in Tehran with his family and worked as a lawyer.

Boroumand remained involved with the pro-democracy movement and was elected to the Council of the National Front in 1963. The political repression that prevailed in Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, however, left no space for peaceful political activism. Boroumand limited his activities to maintaining a network of support for political friends who found themselves in difficulty. He also took care of his family's business ventures. Only in 1976 did a limited political opening allow the pro-democracy movement to reorganize.

The revolutionary turmoil of 1979 was a major turning point in Boroumand's political life. He was one of the few high-ranking National Front members who supported Dr. Shapur Bakhtiar's decision to accept the premiership of Iran in January 1979 in an effort to ensure a peaceful transition to democracy. Bakhtiar, a social democrat and one of the three leaders of the National Front, opposed Ayatollah Khomeini's idea of an Islamic republic. When the National Front Council expelled Bakhtiar, Boroumand resigned in protest. In January 1979, Boroumand was sent to Paris to arrange a meeting between Bakhtiar and Khomeini. The meeting never took place, and Bakhtiar's government was overthrown on February 11, 1979. At the time, Boroumand was in Paris, where he stayed and was granted political asylum.

In August 1979, Bakhtiar arrived in Paris and declared his opposition to the Islamic Republic. Boroumand joined him and placed his apartment, in a Paris suburb, at the disposal of Bakhtiar. It was in this apartment that, in July 1980, a first assassination attempt was carried out against Bakhtiar by a Palestinian commando hired by the Islamic Republic. Bakhtiar was not harmed but the attack resulted in the deaths of a French policeman and a neighbor. It was also in this apartment that the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance (NAMIR), the first pro-democracy opposition movement to Iran's theocracy, was founded in August 1980.

Along with Bakhtiar and his friends, Boroumand played an active role in the creation and development of NAMIR. He was not deterred by the danger inherent in such an endeavor. On April 18, 1991, Boroumand was stabbed to death in the lobby of his Paris apartment by agents of the Islamic Republic. Three month later, on August 6, 1991, Bakhtiar and his assistant Soroush Katibeh were also killed by three agents of the Iranian government.

Boroumand described the political regime he was fighting for in the following terms: "NAMIR aims at restoring national sovereignty in Iran. National sovereignty means that people would enjoy democracy in domestic affairs and independence in international affairs. By democracy I mean the rule of the majority, while all political and social rights of the minority are respected so that the minority gets the opportunity to become the majority. This is not a new goal. This was also the ideal of all the patriots and freedom lovers in our country since the constitutional revolution of 1906."

Boroumand believed that every citizen has a duty to be involved in the affairs of his country. He loved history and enjoyed Persian classical literature. He valued family and friendship and was a loving relative and a loyal friend. Yet for him the dignity of Iran and the liberty and rights of its people were a sacred goal, one for which he gave his life.

The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation--including its first project, Omid, a Memorial in Defense of Human Rights in Iran--is dedicated to promoting Boroumand's ideals. Its creation also sends a message to the proponents of terror: Using violence to eliminate their opponents will not succeed in eliminating their ideas. Indeed, the memory of their victims challenges the collective conscience of a nation and spurs many to fight for freedom and human rights. Killing an opponent may delay, but it surely will not end, the quest for freedom, as the desire for liberty is inherent in human nature.

Human Rights Activist Ladan Boroumand, seated, poses with her sister Roya, in their Washington, D.C. home in this Jan. 19, 2006 file photo. Ladan Boroumand has authored a statement that was signed by more than 100 prominent Iranian activists around the world who have condemned the recent Tehran conference that questioned the occurrence of the Holocaust. The statement pays homage to Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Nazi regime while blasting Iran for 'distortion of historical facts' and criticizing the Iranian government for its own bloody past.(AP Photo/Yuri Gripas, File)
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In a statement to be published next week, more than 100 Iranian activists outside that country have condemned its recent conference questioning the Holocaust.

The activists signed the statement blasting the Iranian government and paying homage to victims of the Nazi regime. The activists expressed frustration over the relative silence on the subject from the Iranian diaspora.

The statement, which began circulating last month, is to be printed next week in The New York Review of Books. The Associated Press recently obtained a copy.

The statement notes that the activists signed notwithstanding their "diverse views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." The signers include Azar Nafisi, who wrote the best-seller "Reading Lolita in Tehran."

"I thought it was inappropriate to use the Holocaust as a political issue," Nafisi said. "I thought that Iranians, especially non-Jewish Iranians, had a responsibility to say, 'Not in my name.'"

The two-day conference in December brought together well-known Holocaust deniers and others who have said the Nazi genocide has been blown out of proportion.

The Tehran conference was backed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has made strident statements against Israel and called the Holocaust a "myth" while seeking to elevate Iran's profile in the region. Attempts to reach officials with the Iranian government were not immediately successful Thursday evening.

Some Iranians outside Iran have avoided publicly condemning the conference because they were concerned about being viewed as pro-Israeli — one reason the statement avoids taking sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Ladan Boroumand, a historian who began circulating the statement.

A US court Wednesday allowed the brother of a murdered Iranian dissident to collect compensation from a US defense firm that owes Iran for a 1970s weapons contract, according to court documents.

The federal appeals court in Pasadena, California, ruled that Dariush Elahi, whose brother was killed by agents of Iran's Islamic government in Paris in 1990, could collect 2.8 million dollars as "default" compensation from the company, Cubic Defense Systems, the court said.

Cubic entered contracts in 1977 to sell air force equipment to Iran but breached them after the 1979 Islamic revolution. International arbitrators ordered Cubic to pay Iran 2.8 million dollars for the breach, but the payment has never been made.

In a case he brought in Washington in 2000, Elahi had been awarded millions of dollars in damages from the US government under a law that grants compensation to victims of terrorism, but only received a partial payment.

The Washington federal court ruled that Iran had been liable for the killing.

Elahi then intervened to press for the money owed by Cubic to Iran to be diverted to him as further compensation. Wednesday's decision by the US Ninth Circuit appeals court upheld this request.